Remus fell, tumbling into a world of whiteness, falling, falling, falling, as a million memories zoomed through his head – his son, his wife, his friends, and the fact that he had did his best, had did his part, in fighting to vanquish the Dark Lord for good.
For what felt like hours – days, maybe – Remus fell into a whirlwind of fog. He made out a door to his left, closed shut. Walking to it, he thought about opening it.
"Are you scared?" asked a familiar voice. Remus whirled around and saw the faces of the two marauders and a longhaired woman. His face splitting into a grin, he ran at his friends, whom he hadn't seen ages, and started to laugh and hug them all.
Finally, Remus stopped chuckling and asked, "Where do we go now?"
A small, sad smile formed on Lily's lips. "You can open the door if you like."
Suddenly, Remus understood that he had reached the other side, the side after death, and that he could partially return to the mortal world if he was scared. A coward, he thought. He wanted with all his heart to go and see his son one last time, to kiss his wife again, to give words of valor to Harry, and to tell his friends "down there" to keep on fighting, until they won.
A coward, he thought again. I won't be a coward.
"No," he said firmly, after ten minutes of thinking.
Prongs roared and hugged his friend. "For a second I thought you were going to leave us."
Lupin smiled slightly. "Where to?" he asked.
"Up," said Sirius, smirking. "It's time to go. We've been waiting for you."
A bright red train cut through the fog. Lupin kept smiling as he boarded it. It wasn't as if he wouldn't ever see his loved ones again. He walked down the corridor and sat down in an empty compartment with his friends.
I'm not a coward.